National planning - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 279

they see fit. Central government also retains responsibility for overall policy towards
Britain's rail network, including the franchising of long-distance 'cross-border' services
and for aviation. These are topics which are especially important to the circumstances
of Scotland (Smyth 2003) and, in that sense, constrain its discretion.
At the level of the devolved governments the context for 'national planning' is also
very different. In terms of population and geographical size the 'nations' of Scotland
and Wales are akin to the 'regions' of England. Yet Scotland and Wales have elected
governments which have discretion over the policies they adopt and the procedures
through which they implement them (MacKinnon et al. 2008). By contrast the English
regions outside London have no such status and essentially work within the policy and
administrative frameworks set by national (central) government. This is the situation
in which 'regional' bodies operate in Scotland and Wales, except that the areas they
cover are more like the shire counties in England. Politically these regional bodies are
akin to the 'joint boards' of constituent local authorities which form the Passenger
Transport Authorities in the English metropolitan areas.
Finally London is an exception even to this very complicated pattern. In
geographical size it is comparable with a Scots/Welsh region or an English county but
in terms of population and economic significance it is much greater than either the
whole of Scotland or Wales or any English region. In policy-making it has much of
the discretion available to the devolved nations (and similarly has directly elected
representation) but constitutionally is no more than a local authority!
Scotland has traditionally operated variants of the planning procedures applied
in England and Wales. Since devolution in 1999, more distinctive regimes have been
developed in both Scotland and Wales. Hence the current arrangements for the three
countries are presented separately in the following sections.
In each case there are sub-sections on transport and on development or spatial
planning. However their relationship is different. In England there is no single strategy
or 'plan' at national level (and was none even during the time when DETR functioned
as a single government department). Hence in England transport and development
planning at national level is operated through separate vertical 'silos' with no formal
relationship between them. (Policy development may involve a degree of collaborative
working, but on an ad hoc basis; in essence the relationship between these two policy
sectors is no different from any other.) In Scotland and Wales (and, as we will see later,
in London) the situation is quite different with transport planning being treated as
integral to, and ultimately a subordinate component of, overall spatial planning.
17.5 National planning in England
National transport planning in England
During the last quarter of the 20th century the concept of a national plan in any
sector of public activity was decidedly unfashionable, inviting comparisons with
Stalinist exercises of the 1930s or monolithic State enterprises in Britain in the 1950s
and 1960s. Interestingly in the transport field national planning has only enjoyed
continuous status in relation to motorways and trunk roads, although even here the
possibility of fragmentation through privatisation was only narrowly missed in the early
1990s.
Unlike the situation now in Scotland and Wales, central government (in acting as
the government for England) is under no statutory obligation to prepare or maintain a